Clutch going bad?

**gashkerwin** · 03-12-2006, 10:38 AM

Ok, so I'm getting new tired on my car in a few days, so I figured I might as well have some fun with what is currently on there. So I revved up to ~4k-4500 in 2nd and dumped the clutch. Everything seemed normal, nothing sounded wrong or felt wrong. It was dark out so I couldn't see any smoke from spinning tires. Anyway, when I pushed the clutch back in, it was like there was no resistance behind the pedal, and then the smell came. It didn't stop working, I had no problem shifting, or getting rolling from a start, I was able to easily get into all gears.

So I got where I was going and let things cool down for a few hours. Later when I came back and had to drive home, everything seemed back to more or less normal.

Should I be overly concerned about this? This is a 00 with under 35k on it, still original clutch. Normally I never have her WOT, and rarely see much more than 4k under "heavy" acceleration. So is my clutch going bad? Should I be worried about driving to work (~28 miles each way) on Monday?

It it is on its way out, how much am I looking at to have it replaced? Not that money is a real object, I'm just curious.

**keliente** · 03-12-2006, 12:32 PM

It was probably just slipping, the smell is pretty indicative of that.

Chances are you will be able to drive it just fine for quite some time, you may just have problems slipping with the WOT shifts. Especially on an '00 car where the master & slave cylinders also hinder the operation...

I wouldn't be too concerned with it now. If you plan on taking it to the track a lot then upgrading the clutch may be a good idea to eliminate slipping.

**swimster144** · 03-13-2006, 04:44 PM

Haha...first of all, I wanna ask how it was when you popped the clutch in second? Did it bog, or did it go pretty well? I've never heard of anyone dumping in second, but then again I am pretty new to owning a V8.

Second, If everything felt normal and the clutch wasn't slipping after the fact then I wouldn't worry about it at all. I mean, you dropped the clutch at 4500 RPM in second gear...You roasted the shit out of that clutch, but thats ok, these clutches as far as I know can take some abuse (for a stock clutch). No doubt you wore it a bit, but it should still drive fine for a while being that you only have 35K mi. I would guess the reason it felt like it had no pressure is most likely because the clutch got REALLY hot when you did that, so when you went to drive it right after, it felt kind of mushy. In my experience, when clutches get heated up, they feel a little lighter in the pedal, though I'm not sure as to why that is mechanically.

5.slow · 03-30-2006, 08:01 PM

i think it's b/c clutches are a lot like brakes. A lot of times if you replace your pads and your rotors are thin or below the "discard" when you go to brake really hard the car will start to stop and then the brakes will just fail. What happens is that rotors are not thick enough to dissipate heat properly. More than likely that's what happened to your clutch. It slipped like crazy, which is why you got the smell, and the the pressure plate got hot as hell. Thats my guess anyway.